


Walking Wounded

by kittydesade



Category: Covert Affairs
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade





	Walking Wounded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thetidebreaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetidebreaks/gifts).



"Come on. Get up. Time for you to start moving around again."

Annie bit her lip to keep from whining. "It hurts when I move," she pointed out, although she did kind of want to see if it had gotten better. Like when she was little and poked her loose teeth with the tip of her tongue constantly to see if they were falling out yet.

But the tooth never fell out, and it wasn't any better. Not measurably. She couldn't hold back the gulping sound, or the squeak of pain as she stretched her back upwards even just the fraction of an inch it took to lift her upper body. And then the sharp, panting breaths as he caught her hand, butterfly touches till his fingers wrapped around her wrists, and he pulled her forward and up. She wheezed, tears springing to her eyes as pain pulsed up and down her spine and her body locked up, resisting movement.

"Come on, take a step towards me, you can do it." Auggie's voice came to her through watery eyes and a world narrowed down to the pain and the unrelenting, if unreasonable fear that she'd done some hard damage to herself. The docs had checked her out, had told her it was mostly muscle damage, but still. "Annie…"

"Mmph?" Words weren't happening. She would whimper if she spoke more than in grunts and gasps, and she didn't want to. Not in front of Auggie.

Doubly so not in front of Jai, who had come up behind him. She glared at him, only it came out as more of a petulant stare. "Come on, Annie. You can do it."

She took a breath. If Auggie's support didn't do it, maybe being irritated at Jai showing up when she was supposed to be resting would. Just shifting her weight was enough to send the white lighting up and down her back again, echoing in places she didn't expect like her pelvis and hips.

"Are you sure she should be doing this?" Jai asked, as though she weren't in the room, which was exactly why she hadn't wanted him there.

Auggie gave his direction a dirty look. "I'm going by the doctor's instructions. The muscles need to be worked if she's going to heal up at all soon, and she's already on as many painkillers as she'll take." And that got her an eyeroll in _her_ direction. She was too busy panting to make a sarcastic remark, but she took another aching step forward. The impact of her heel on the ground sent another jolt through her hip and into the small of her back.

"Annie…" Jai started forward at her whimper, Auggie's hands clenching on her wrists. No words, another step, and then another. And then she stopped to pant and breathe and say something so that they wouldn't think she was dying. Which she wasn't. Just in more pain than she'd ever been before, and that was saying something.

"So…" she panted. "Am I walking like an old lady yet?"

Jai didn't appreciate the humor, but Auggie relaxed, even smiled a little. His fingers eased on her wrists, stroking along the soft skin toward the inside. "No, you're walking like someone with no hip joints whatsoever. Next time you need to move, we're going to make you bend your legs."

"Auggie, I don't think…"

"Shut it, Jai." Okay, they didn't exactly say it together, but it was close. Close enough to make him throw up his hands and stalk out of the room.

Auggie's head tilted a little in that funny way he had, like a dog, when he was trying to track someone's movements. "Did he just…"

"Throw his hands up in the air and stalk out of here? Yes, he did. Has he always been that much of a drama queen?" Thinking about Jai kept her mind off how much it hurt to be standing here, and how she was going to be leaning on Auggie more and more with every passing moment. She'd thought she was able to shrug off the injuries from the interrogation, go back to the office and get debriefed and finish up her paperwork and go home. She'd thought it was momentary stiffness, and then she'd gotten up from her desk and collapsed to the floor shrieking in startlement and fright. He'd been the first one to her side, then, and hadn't left since.

Though of the two of them, Jai was definitely the more scared. Auggie didn't seem to be anything other than his usual self, cracking wise and offering up wisdom between.

"He's just worried, and he doesn't know how to deal with this. There's nothing for him to fight or bargain with. Mostly bargain with," he added. "It's Jai."

"Yeah, it is." Annie shook her head, the one part of her left it seemed that she could move and not suffer for it. Which was weird, because she was more prone to stiff necks and shoulders. "Can I…"

"Yeah, come on, let's get you back to your nest over there."

She'd only taken four or five steps, and every one of them backwards felt twice as hard. Jolt after jolt after jolt. Maybe her bones weren't grinding against each other but her teeth certainly were. She wasn't going to make any more noises, though. Okay, she wasn't making any more noises except her breath whooshing between her teeth and through flared nostrils. Strands of blond hair caught in her cracked lips and clung.

"Okay…" Auggie's voice came to her through the cold, tingling air over her skin. Past the focus on getting her butt back on the ground. "Okay, easy. Ease down. That's it, you're okay. I got you."

By the time she was on the ground again she was open-mouth panting, tears filling her eyes though not trickling down, not yet. Maybe next time. "Christ. That hurt."

Auggie laughed, brushing one hand over her shoulder to orient himself and then sitting down next to her. "It wasn't as bad as it was last time. And still not as bad as it was five hours ago. You're getting better already, even if you don't feel it."

"It's pretty bad, Auggie," she sighed. "I don't… I can't believe this is happening. I keep thinking, when I get up, I'll be able to get up again, and I can't even sit up straight without it hurting."

"You couldn't move your arms earlier today without it hurting. Now you've got almost full mobility back. It's not a life threatening injury, and the doc said there's not even any permanent damage. They'll have the X-rays back in a couple hours just to make sure. Here…" His arm slid around her shoulder, but she hissed when he started pulling her against him. "Sorry. Sorry…"

She bit back some comment about asking him if this was what it was like for him, people constantly forgetting he was blind after he got out of emergency surgery. This wasn't like that, this wasn't anything like that. Even if it felt like it. She still didn't say anything, and his fingers curled around her shoulder, trailing up and down over her skin and catching at the edge of her t-shirt sleeve.

"It's scary," he said finally. His voice was soft and right by her ear. "It's … it's more terrifying than anything, when your body isn't doing what it's supposed to and you don't know what's wrong, you don't know how to fix it. People, especially where we are, they'll tell you to play through the pain. They'll tell you you have to be hard, you have to run and jump and, and climb walls with bullets in your shoulder and broken legs. And, yeah, sometimes you do. If your life depends on it. Doesn't make you any less brave for getting up every time we have to go walk and taking those five steps."

Five steps. She'd counted, because she needed to in order to know how much more hell she'd have to endure before she could rest again. She was sweating, too. Annie suddenly decided she didn't like to be this sweaty and this close to Auggie, even though she'd been fine with it for the last few hours.

"It's scary, and it's okay to be scared. But it will go away. You keep getting up, you keep walking, eventually your body will remember what it's supposed to be doing, and it'll get back to doing it. You'll be back climbing walls and chasing bad guys before you even want to be."

That last part did make her snort. She looked over at Auggie. "You promise?"

Somehow he managed to be looking right at her, even though he couldn't see her. Being almost nose to nose probably had something to do with it, but it felt good anyway. "I promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that, buster." She even managed to raise her arm and straighten up without more than a tiny grunt, beeping his nose to make him laugh. And that felt pretty good, too.


End file.
